MINDS ON FILM

April 2011 Posts

Introduction

Brassed Off, directed by Mark Herman and released in
1996, stars Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald, Stephen Tompkinson
and Ewan McGregor. Strangely marketed as a comedy, this film tells
the very moving story of impending mass redundancies in Grimley, a
Yorkshire mining town, when its profitable colliery is threatened
with closure.

It is set in 1992, at a time of great change in the coal
industry, and chooses to focus on the lives of the miners who play
in the Grimley Colliery Brass Band. The band is led by their
passionate conductor Danny, who is determined to take the group to
the finals of the National Championships at the Albert Hall. The
late Pete Postlethwaite plays Danny, in one of his most acclaimed
performances. This film was said to have played a part in the
inspiration for The Coalfield Regeneration programme set up in the
late 1990s to improve the quality of life in Britain’s coalfield
communities.

The Film

The opening scene shows us some miners
finishing a shift at the coalface before transforming into cleanly
scrubbed workers clocking off. We first meet the all male group of
musicians soon after that at their rehearsal where they are joined
by a young woman called Gloria, who is visiting Grimley, and turns
out to be the grand daughter of a former member of the band. An
exception is made to the all male constitution of the band by
allowing her to join them, after an audition in which she proves
that she will be an asset to them in their quest to win the
National Championships.

A love interest develops between Gloria and a
young man in the band called Andy, which provides one of several
storylines, as it becomes clear that Gloria’s presence in the town
has something to do with the potential closure of Grimley’s
coalmine. Through the following scenes, the film introduces us to
the respective families and partners of each of the main members of
the band and we come to understand the precarious financial
predicament that some of them are in as they contemplate
redundancy.

As Brassed Off progresses, the miners
are offered a very favourable redundancy package by management,
which many can’t resist and when a majority vote to accept the
deal, pit closure becomes inevitable. One of those accepting the
offer is Danny’s son, Phil, who is the trombonist in the band. He
is already struggling to survive as a result of debts he accrued
from the lengthy strike action he took ten years earlier. We watch
him develop depression as he struggles to provide for his wife and
four children. Unable to share his problems with anyone, he
struggles to earn money as a children’s entertainer called Mr
Chuckles. His serious financial predicament only comes to light
with the arrival of two moneylenders at his front door, who demand
the immediate payment of his debts before taking all of the
possessions from his home. As a result, his wife leaves, taking the
children with her, because she can no longer cope with such an
impoverished life. At this point, Phil finds himself completely
alone, having lost his job, his wife, his children and the contents
of his house. When his father collapses in the street and is
admitted to hospital with coal related lung disease, Phil attempts
suicide.

The miner’s band seems likely to collapse
after these events but doesn’t and they manage to keep the hope of
National Championships alive as they struggle to hold on to their
self esteem and community identity through their music, at the same
time as contemplating a period of great personal uncertainty.

Relevance to the field of Mental Health

Brassed Off provides an ideal platform to discuss the
effects that job insecurity and involuntary redundancy can have on
the mental health of individuals and their families. Using the
example of Phil and his family, the film provides us with an
unfolding case history in which to consider the precipitating
triggers for his depression and attempted suicide. It also provides
an opportunity to reflect on the role of purposeful goal directed
activity, both paid and unpaid, in maintaining an individual’s self
esteem and self worth.

In the current economic climate in which there
are, once again, threats of large-scale job losses, Brassed
Off’s themes may be as pertinent to our society now as it was
in the 1990s. With the recent announcement that the pharmaceutical
company, Pfizer, is to close its R&D establishment in Sandwich,
Kent, where 2,400 jobs will be lost (Guardian
newspaper; 1st February 2011), there is concern about
the effect that this will have on the town and its surrounding
area. A whole infrastructure has grown up to cater for the staff
and their families at the Pfizer plant and local groups talk of
devastation to the surrounding environs when the facility closes.
In a very direct way the issues portrayed in the film are relevant
to the community in Sandwich.

An editorial in the March 2011 edition of the
British Journal of Psychiatry by Dunlop and Mletzko
entitled Will current socioeconomic trends produce a depressing
future for men? ( BJPsych 2011 198, 167-168) discusses the
topic some have called ‘Mancession’, reminding readers that
approximately 75% of jobs lost since the beginning of the recession
in 2007 were held by men. This is because the construction and
manufacturing industries have been disproportionately affected by
redundancies in the past few years.

An article entitled Job insecurity,
socio-economic circumstances and depression by Meltzer H,
Bebbington P, Brugha T; Psychol Med 2010 Aug (40(8):
1401-7) considers the topic of job insecurity in
the context of the current economic difficulties in the UK and
concludes that job insecurity has a strong association with
feelings of depression in the people that they studied.

An interesting editorial in the BMJ from 2009,
reviews the topic of Unemployment and Health (BMJ
2009; 338:b829). Written by Danny
Dorling, professor of human geography, the article discusses the
effects of mass unemployment on physical and mental health by
reflecting on past epidemics and highlights how young adults, in
particular, are affected. These topics are all brought to life by a
viewing of Brassed Off and the film is surely relevant to
all mental health professionals, as well as those working in
primary care, as the UK faces a period of time characterised by
spending cuts and rising unemployment.

For more specific advice on how to approach
the consequences of losing ones job, the NHS choices website has an
excellent short video called ‘coping with redundancy’,
as well as plenty of other information on managing the health
consequences of threatened or actual job loss.